


the birds must land

by LiterallyAViking



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, I am the only one with that hc but I own it, IwaMatsu Week 2021, M/M, Moroccan Matsukawa Issei, mentioned parental death, now lets see if I can do the rest of the week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29194827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiterallyAViking/pseuds/LiterallyAViking
Summary: Issei was four the first time he ever wrote to his soulmate.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Matsukawa Issei
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	the birds must land

_ He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. _ He likes the feel of the coffee pot.

-

Issei was four the first time he wrote to his soulmate, although to say he ‘wrote’ anything may be a bit of a stretch. Fresh out of his first day of preschool, the same Quranic school his mother had attended when she was his age growing up in Tangier, Issei had dashed into the nursery as soon as he got home, ignoring his just-waking-up baby sister as he lunged at his mother in excitement, squeezing his way into her arms and already babbling a mile an hour.

“—and she had drawings on her arms,  _ maimah _ ,  _ drawings _ !” he tripped over his words in his rush to get them from his mouth, eyes glinting with excitement as he grinned up at his mother. His baby sister, who had been shifted to one arm so that he wouldn’t crush her with his body or accidentally strike her with his arms still swinging wildly, stared up at him with wide, glistening eyes, drool drying on her chin. “And, and” he took a deep breath to steady himself. “And I  _ watched _ as they just suddenly  _ appeared _ on her,  _ maimah. _ One second her arm was blank and then the next they were just _ there _ , and she couldn’t have drawn them because she didn’t even move!”

“That, my dear boy,” a voice sounded from behind the small gathering, Issei instantly recognizing the tone and leaping from his mother’s arms to rush at his father, crying out an excited ‘Papa!’ as he launched himself in the man’s arms, instead. He was hefted up with a quiet grunt that made him laugh. “Is because  _ she _ didn’t draw it.”

“It was her soulmate,” his mother supplied from where he had just come from, leaving Issei to swivel his head over to the woman as she stood from her chair, his baby sister tucked happily in the crook of her elbow as she smoothly moved towards where Issei and his father now stood. His father pressed a kiss to his mother’s lips and Issei was quick to pull a face, averting his eyes even as his parents let out amused laughter at his disgust. 

“What’s that?” Issei’s curiosity finally got the better of him, the boy shyly turning back to his parents once he was sure he couldn’t hear any more kissing noises happening behind him. “A—a  _ soulmate _ ?” His lips wrapped messily around the words,  _ taw’am rohi _ as his mother had said.  _ Twin soul _ .

“It’s someone who was made for you,” his mother continued, reaching out to pet a hand through his thick black curls, not pulling when her fingers caught in the tangles—she was always gentle with her touch—and not making a face when her hand came away with bits of wet sand attached to it, a clear sign that he had run down to the bay with his friends before coming home despite his promising that he wouldn’t. He was sure he’d get a talking to about it later, but for now, his parents were occupied with something else. “Someone who shares the other half of your soul.”

She poked a finger into his sternum, the boy letting out a squeak of surprise before he settled his hand above the place where she had poked as if he would be able to feel his aforementioned soul resting just beneath his skin, squirming like a worm on the sidewalk after a night of rain. He had heard of the  _ rūh _ before, the spirit endowed in each person by Allah, but had never heard of it being split. That just seemed messy.

“Why don’t I have  _ all  _ of my soul?” he asked after a long moment of contemplation during which time he had been passed off to his mother, who had hefted an even more dramatic grunt than his father had when he had picked him up, and his sister had been passed off to his father, cooing excitedly as she reached her pudgy hands out to pat at the man’s face.

“Well,” his mother acquiesced, “Perhaps that wasn’t the best choice of words. A soulmate is someone with a soul that matches yours the best, a soul so close to yours that it might as well  _ be _ the other half.”

“Oh.” he conceded thoughtfully. “Well, why does that let you write on someone else’s arm?”

“No one really knows,” she continued, tapping at Issei’s cheek, plump with baby fat and puffed out with annoyance as he batted her hand away. “It’s just how it’s always been. Even between me and your dad.” she paused. “Would you like to try it?”

“It?”

“Writing on your arm, writing to your soulmate,” she explained, petting her hand through his hair once again. If she didn’t notice the sand last time, she definitely did this time around, if the look twisting her face was anything to go by. Suddenly writing to his soulmate seemed a very good idea.

“Yes!” he cried out, shocking his mother. “I want to write them! My soulmate. I want to write to them.”

His mother let out a laugh before moving to set him down on the ground, waving him out of the nursery and towards the kitchen, instead. Issei dug a marker out from the cup of coloring materials that sat on the low table in the kitchen, a green one because he liked the color, and hurried towards his mother who was standing at the entrance of the kitchen, arms crossed and hip leaned against the doorway.

“What,” he started shyly, peeking up at his mother from beneath his lashes, thick and dark, the same as hers. “What should I write?”

“They may not know Arabic,” his mother explained, crouching down so that she was closer to his height. “Or Japanese,” she continued when she caught him opening his mouth to protest on behalf of his father’s language. “So maybe just start with a drawing. A flower, maybe, or something you like.”

“A futball?” Issei asked after a moment of thought, landing on what had become his current obsession, the boy having taken up playing with the neighborhood kids in the street despite their being older and bigger than him. 

“That sounds perfect.”

Issei went to bed that night with a hastily drawn futball on his wrist, green and a bit smeared, but he thought it was pretty good. He had even taken out a piece of paper and replicated the drawing, passing it off to his father for him to keep it in his wallet. When he woke up there was a volleyball right next to it, blue, and the kanji to a name written besides what he could only assume was its replication in English. He had rubbed the fact that his soulmate spoke Japanese in his mother’s face for a good minute before writing back.

-

_ Do you love yourself? _ I don’t have to answer that.  _ It should matter. _

-

The Matsukawas had never been big on travel, the family of five—Issei’s baby brother had been born when he was seven—only having traveled out of Morocco once, to France, when Issei was ten. The second time Issei had ever traveled out of the country was also the last time he was in Morocco. Issei was thirteen when his father had died, something that had choked the life out of him as easily as the man had been able to puff it into him whenever he was down, and the funeral was in Japan. His mother had insisted on the family of once again four moving, the memories she had in Morocco too much for her to bear.

They moved in with Issei’s grandmother, his father’s mother, an aging lady with a harsh tongue but a soft hand, the woman readily dishing out insults all while she stroked your hair back. She liked to run her thumb over Issei’s eyebrows whenever he cried just like his father used to.

There had been a lull in conversation between him and his soulmate during this year, the boy too overwhelmed to give the other any more than what was polite, a cursory ‘hello’ each morning, now at the same time rather than separated by time zones, and a ‘goodnight’ before he went to bed, a few messages scattered throughout the day if he felt up to it.

Issei had never been a particularly talkative person, nothing like the over-excited kid he had been when he first discovered what soulmates were, and this entire ordeal had only served to take him down another notch, the quiet demeanor he had become known for back home suddenly seeping into his relationship with his soulmate. He had never considered it a possibility before this but also didn’t know how to take it back now that it was happening.

Sure, the obvious answer was to just write more, but that felt like too much work. It wasn’t as much fun anymore. It was hard to do, in the mental sense, as if something in his bones had shifted so that even picking up a marker, his green marker, still, was a chore. It made his muscles burn like nothing ever had, even when he had shifted from futball to volleyball, suddenly playing with tendons and muscles he didn’t even know he had, all because his soulmate played it, that had hurt less than this. Than simply putting a marker to his skin and  _ writing _ .

-

He has a body but it doesn’t matter, clean sheets on the bed but it doesn’t matter.  _ This is where he trots out his sadness. Little black cloud, little black umbrella. _

-

The first time Issei, the boy still getting used to being called  _ Matuskawa _ as he never was back in Morocco, had met the group of boys that would become his closest friends, he had felt scared. Aoba Johsai was a powerhouse school, after all, and Issei had skin that was too dark and an accent that was too thick. He had walked into volleyball tryouts his first day with his mouth shut, the boy too frightened to say a word and endure the ridicule he had been facing most of the day. It wasn’t enough to warrant his going to anyone, at least not in his mind, and it was often done behind his back, in tones low enough that he likely wasn’t meant to hear them. He was too tall, too wide, and too dark for them to say it to his face.

In their minds that made sense, at least.

The current team was already trolling about the court, tossing balls back and forth and slapping each other on the back with bright voices and friendly smiles. A few other first years were lined up at the end court in front of the coach, including Yuda-san who sat a few rows in front of him. He gave Issei a wave, the smile that accompanied it too shaky with nerves to be of much comfort.

“Calm down, Yu-chan!” another first-year cooed, swinging his arm about the shorter as he did so. Issei’s eyes followed the movement to a boy a few centimeters shorter than him, perfectly tousled light-brown hair sat over smooth skin far lighter than Issei’s. The first year caught him staring and his smile widened into something almost dangerous. Issei’s throat felt dry as he stalked towards him. “Oikawa Tooru, nice to make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise,” Issei echoed, bowing his head slightly in greeting as he worked to keep his voice as low and soft as possible, hoping the other wouldn’t be able to catch the accent that way. “Matsukawa Issei.”

“So, Mattsun,” Oikawa continued once he had given a shallow nod of his head in return. Issei’s eyebrows, thick just like his mother's, shot up in surprise at the nickname, his mind taking a moment to register it as so, thinking at first that the other had decided to bring  _ masu _ trout into the conversation. “What position do you play? How long  _ have _ you played?”

“Uh,” Issei struggled. It hadn’t even been too many questions, but it felt as if he were being buried. He glanced at Yuda for help, but the boy had gone back to staring nervously at the court, sweat clinging to his brow despite no exercise having been done yet. “I’m—”

“Oi, Shittykawa,” a voice, much harsher than Oikawa’s own melodic, albeit grating, voice broke the conversation. Issei’s eyes traveled to the source, finding it in a boy a few centimeters shorter than Oikawa, dark brown hair spiked to the ceiling and skin a few shades lighter than Issei’s own, tanned as if he spent time in the sun. He took a moment to appreciate the curve of the other’s muscles, he was built wide where Oikawa was built tall and lanky, before his eyes traveled to the boy who was following after him. Pink hair cropped close to his skull and skin similar to Oikawa’s, his hairline was pocked with a few acne scars and he wore a cheeky grin. His hands were in his pants.  _ Weird _ , Issei mused before turning his attention back to the boy who had yelled at Oikawa. “Stop bothering him.”

“Mean, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa whined, slapping at the buff boy’s forearm as a pout formed on his face. “I was just introducing myself.”

“Seemed more like you were tormenting him,” the pink-haired boy chimed in, smirk growing excitedly before nodding his head at Issei. “Hanamaki Takahiro. He,” Hanamaki tossed his head in Oikawa’s direction, “Calls me Makki, so feel free to do that, if you want.”

“Iwaizumi Hajime,” the buff boy introduced himself as well, giving a shallow bow of his head which Issei returned.

“Matsukawa Issei.”

“Mattsun,” Oikawa reintroduced as if Issei had done it wrong. His lip twitched as he watched Iwaizumi roll his eyes and Hanamaki hide a snort behind his hand.

“It seems  _ you _ got one, too,” Makki retorted as he sidled up beside Issei, grinning at him as if he had never been anywhere else.

“Anyways,” Oikawa interrupted, shooting both of the other boys the stink eye. “What position do you play?”

“Oh, right back to it,” he mused mostly to himself, although Hanamaki had obviously caught it if his stifled laughter was anything to go by. “Um, I usually play middle blocker because of the, uh, the height,” he waved his hand near the top of his head as if to indicate just what he meant. “And, uh, I’ve been playing since I was eleven, maybe? Not too long.”   
  


“Longer than me,” Hanamaki chimed in. “And there’s no way you would’ve been able to beat these two, anyways. They’ve been at it since the womb, practically.” 

“His fault,” Iwaizumi grunted, shoving Oikawa with his shoulder as he spoke. “If it were up to me we’d play futball.”

“Futball?” Issei echoed, eyebrow arching with curiosity as he gazed curiously at the shorter boy. Iwaizumi flushed, the red coloring barely visible under his tanned skin, but Issei was used to finding blushes in colorings even darker than his. 

“Well, either that or baseball,” he conceded, grumbling a bit as if embarrassed by his answer.

“No, no,” Issei tried to settle the other. “I think it’s cool. I used to play futball back ho—” he paused. Even though Morocco still felt like home, he knew it wasn’t, not anymore. He swallowed thickly and steeled his face once again. “Back before we moved.”

Although the other three looked curious, they didn’t prod, not even Oikawa who Issei could already tell was a nosy person. 

“Iwa-chan’s soulmate used to play,” Oikawa sang, draping himself across the shorter boy’s shoulders as if he had done it a thousand times before. Iwaizumi shoved him off as if he had done it a thousand times before, as well. “He got  _ really _ into it for a while.”

Iwaizumi flushed an even darker color as Oikawa cackled victoriously at seeing his friend’s embarrassment. Makki let out another snort, and even Issei felt obliged to chuckle as well.

As they lined up at the coach's call, Issei found himself next to Iwaizumi, the shorter shooting him a tight smile until he leaned down to mutter into the other’s ear as best as he could. “If it’s any consolation, the only reason I got into volleyball was because of my soulmate.” He watched in real-time as Iwaizumi’s grin grew brighter in response.

-

_ Everyone in this room got here somehow and everyone in this room will have to leave. _ So what’s left? Sing a song about the room we’re in? Hammer in the pegs that fix the meaning to the landscape?

-

“Why do we never talk about soulmates?” Oikawa asked one day as the four of them lay in Iwaizumi’s backyard mindlessly staring up at the sky. Issei and Makki had been calling out the shapes they saw in the clouds with increasing gusto and absurdity, Oikawa chiming in every so often when his mind was able to spin up something odd enough to leave the two of them in hysterics.

“What?” Issei asked, his mind slow as if the food they had just eaten was enough to weigh him down.

“I mean it!” Oikawa continued, turning onto his front and propping himself up on his forearms. Issei exchanged a look first with Makki and then with Iwaizumi before he, too, turned over, sitting up with a groan. The other two followed. “Iwa-chan, you and I used to talk about them  _ all _ the time, but not anymore, and never with you two.” He pouted at the three of them as if that would change their minds.

“I guess it just never came up,” Hanamaki spoke up, shrugging as he did. “I mean, we’re teenagers, who the hell talks about this stuff at our age, anyways?”

“ _ I _ do!” Oikawa squawked in offense. “Oh! We could do what me and Iwa used to do—” he ignored Iwaizumi’s comment of ‘Iwa and  _ I _ ’, although Issei shared an amused smile with Iwaizumi at it. “We used to write our soulmates at the same time and whoever got theirs to write back first got to make the other do whatever they wanted for an entire day!”

“We aren’t twelve anymore, Oikawa,” Makki sighed out. “At least offer to buy us food or something.”

“Why do you immediately assume  _ I’m _ going to lose? Iwa-chan  _ always _ lost whenever we played it.”   
  


“That’s because my soulmate was in another  _ time zone _ , Trashykawa,” Iwaizumi shoved at his friend as he spoke, Makki and Issei snickering at the movement. “You just always wanted to boss me around for a day.”

“Maybe so,” Oikawa conceded. “But still! Come  _ on _ , guys! It’ll be fun. And we can do it for food, too, if playing King for the day doesn’t sound good enough.”

“Only if you lost,” Hanamaki cooed, poking Oikawa’s cheek as he did so. He bat at the other in offense.

“Come on, come on!” Oikawa continued to cheer, latching onto Iwaizumi and Makki’s arms as he scrambled to his feet, forcing the two to their feet along with him. Iwaizumi shot him a desperate look that left Issei giggling before he lifted himself up, as well, following after the trio as Oikawa dragged them into the Iwaizumi household. 

“It was fun when we were kids,” Iwaizumi muttered to Issei as Oikawa continued into his kitchen, Hanamaki just a step behind him with laughter on his lips. He turned to face the other, giving him his attention as best as he could. “But now it just feels stupid.” Iwaizumi paused for a moment. “Are you all right with this? I know some people don’t really like to do this in front of others.”

“Nah,” Issei denied after a moment of thought. “It’ll be okay. Although my mom would totally freak if she knew,” he shared a conspiratorial grin with the other. “She was the first person I wrote to them around and ever since then she’s been very strict on the whole ‘you can only do it around your family’ thing.”

“Shit,” Iwaizumi’s eyes were blown wide with fear. “Are we gonna get you in trouble?”

“It’s just a Muslim mom thing. She knows I write them even out in public, but as long as I don’t tell her about it she’s fine with it.”

“Do you,” Iwaizumi paused, eyes shifting to the floor before shooting towards the kitchen before falling on Issei once again. He cleared his throat. “Do you write them often?”

The sounds of Oikawa and Hanamaki digging through Iwaizumi’s kitchen, likely trashing the place in search for some pens, seemed louder now as Issei grew quiet, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth where he gnawed at it for a moment.

“Not really,” he admitted at long last, shame creeping into his voice as he avoided Iwaizumi’s eyes. He fiddled anxiously with his fingers. “Not as often as I should. I used to write with them a lot. Hold whole conversations that were, frankly, pretty stupid, but felt real mature at the time, you know? But after my dad died and we moved here it just felt like too much work.” Issei frowned a bit. “Not the right wording. It was just too much for me then, I guess. It’s still a lot for me to handle, even though I know it shouldn’t be.”

“That’s okay,” Iwaizumi said, voice low as if he was trying to chase away the gruff aftertaste that haunted his words. Issei tilted his head just so, trying to catch Iwaizumi’s eye. The other was staring at the ground, however, short thumbnail caught between his teeth. He wanted to bat it away, but knew it wasn’t his place. “My soulmate isn’t too active of a writer and I never fault them for that. And I know that Oikawa sometimes gets like that, too, where everything’s just too much. Even writing.” Iwaizumi finally looked up, pulling his hand away from his face and giving him a small grin. “Don’t tell him I said that, though. That’s his shit to talk about, not mine. I just thought it might make you feel a bit better.”

“Yeah,” Issei’s throat felt raw. “Yeah, thanks. It did.”

Did Iwaizumi always have such pretty eyes?

Cut off from his thoughts by a shriek of triumph, Issei turned to watch Oikawa come barreling out of the kitchen, a handful of pens clutched in his fist and Hanamaki chanting in triumph just over his shoulder.

“One for you, one for you, one for you, and one for me!” Oikawa hummed as he passed each of them a pen, saving the one with the cat on it for himself. “I hope you don’t mind, Iwa-chan, I kept the cutest one for myself.” he tapped the pen against his cheek, ignoring Issei and Makki’s shared snort of laughter. “Now come on! Everyone get their pens ready.”

What Oikawa demanded Oikawa got, the three of them obediently uncapping their pens at his request. “Now what?” Issei asked.

“Yeah, what should we write?” Makki continued.

“I don’t know!” Oikawa huffed, shooting a glare at Issei when he muttered a quiet ‘it was your idea’ under his breath. “Just…draw a circle, all right? Something easy like that.”

“Why would our soulmates respond to a circle?” Iwaizumi pointed out.

“Not exactly a conversation starter there, captain. My soulmate could be staring at their arm right this moment, pen poised as so, and I doubt they would respond to something like a  _ circle _ .” Hanamaki cheered.

“Fine! Fine, right ‘hello’ or something, okay?” Oikawa gave in with a pout. “Now! Everybody, pens at the ready. Whoever’s soulmate writes back last buys everyone else food, you got it?” He waited until they all nodded in confirmation. “Okay! Three, two, one, go!”

Issei snickered as he watched Oikawa rush into the ordeal, placing his neat kanji right over the tendons of his wrist, Hanamaki following after as he dug his pen into the back of his hand, ink blotching against his skin. He heard Iwaizumi let out an exasperated sigh, turning to watch as the boy wrote a polite ‘hello’ into the skin of his forearm. Lifting his own pen, he turned his arm over to write the greeting as well and promptly froze.

“Uh,” Issei stuttered, face slowly flushing as his mind quickly recognized the font and placement of the very word he was about to write. “I think I win.”

“What?” Oikawa shrieked, looking up from where he had been furiously staring at his own arm. Hanamaki and Iwaizumi looked up curiously, as well. “How is that possible, you haven’t even written yours yet.”

“Yeah, but look,” Issei could feel his lips cracking into a pleased grin as he shoved his forearm out for the others to see. Iwaizumi was the first to realize, the boy choking as a flush of his own built its way onto his face. Hanamaki was next, recognizing Iwaizumi’s reaction with a guffaw of pleased laughter. 

“What? Why is tha…oh.” Oikawa trailed off as Iwaizumi offered his arm, as well, where a matching word was placed in a matching space. “Oh my.”

-

_ He raises the moon on a crane for effect, cue the violins.  _ That’s what the violins are for. And yes, he raises the moon on a crane and scrubs it until it shines.  _ So what does it shine on? _ Nothing.

-

Oikawa would later claim, as he bought the four of them another round of ramen after his soulmate had taken three hours to respond, the responding ‘hello!!’ only arriving after they had started their first-round whereas Hanamakis had come in maybe fifteen minutes after he had written his greeting, that Matsukawa had never replied so  _ technically _ Iwaizumi should be buying them food.

“We wrote each other when we went upstairs,” Issei assured the other, mouth full of noodles as he kept one of Iwaizumi’s hands in his, messily dishing up more food with his non-dominant hand.

“Just to make sure,” Iwaizumi continued, squeezing Issei’s hand. “He drew a penis on my leg.”

“It was really cool.”

“I hate you both so much,” Oikawa settled his head in his hands and let out a groan of distress.

“Cool.”

-

  
_ What did you really want? _ Someone to pass this with me.  _ You wanted more. _ I want what everyone wants.

**Author's Note:**

> n e ways, stan any and all seijoh pairings, they make me happy <3
> 
> also find me on tumblr at literallyaviking where i never post about haikyuu but think about it constantly/will talk about it constantly if asked


End file.
